in most ways it helped me understand the breadth of our own community issues i was one of those small town year old gays who went to college in a big city in when saying someone was a hot tranny mess was very common as the show evolved and faced their own mistakes in how they mishandled the diversity of our community in their own way so too did i begin to understand the actual weight of the words i used and the negative impact i was making in my own community it helped me grow more as a person as i began to better understand a carefully edited slice of the diverse culture the lgbt community had to offer as well as the unique challenges we have created for ourselves